Our reference: 21/1 Your reference:
CONFIDENTIAL
DN Royce Esq
Overseas Projects Group
BRITISH TRADE COMMISSION IN HONG KONG 7th Floor, Shell House, Queen's Road, Central, HONG KONG
Department of Trade & Industry
1 Victoria Street
London S W 1
1.
Dear Daweil.
Mail Address: P.O. Box No. 528, Hong Kong
Cable Address: “Uktrade Hongkong"
RECEIVED Mele hone: 230176
REGISTRY No.51
29 JAN 1974
Akku/2
22 January 1974,
PA. (MRTs)
28:1
De
Goodfellow
Father garted. I am not
in
sure if he is regretting Sir J. Tchay', statement on it's *Chataway
on its netraction by the
25
In my Creda number 2 of 14 January I reported the slightly distor pre reporting of remarks which Sir John Tilney made on his arrival on 12 January for a visit which terminated only yesterday. That telex and the associated Christian number 58 were dashed off to you just before I left for the Commercial Officers' Conference in Singapore from which I returned during the
bo tia weekend so that I was not here for the inevitable continuing debate public and private on the subject. But I was able to meet with Sir John Tilney before I left for Singapore and gave him some briefing and I happened to be a witness of the last stages of his efforts to get his bearings between the conflicting versions of the situation. What follows is therefore based artly on my own knowledge and partly on what I have heard indirectly, but I thought it might be helpful to you and the others to whom I am copying this to know the background in case there is a backwash in Whitehall (or Westminster).
mak
2. First, my "briefing" with Sir John Tilney. Unfortunately this had to be brief and garbled. I had arranged to give a luncheon for him on his fire: day (Monday) to meet a cross section of British business representatives and had
when I sax what hoped to have some time afterwards to talk with him privately he had said in the press I decided that I would use the private time mainly to try to ensure that he knew in broad outline what had happened over the 13 and what the general range of options had been, But the discussion at luncheon about Hong Kong and UK generally was so lively that, contrary to normal practice, the businessmen elected to stay on for another half hour over coffee and since the Hong Kong Government had filled up the afternoon I was only able to spend a
In that time all that I few private minutes with him before he had to dash off. could do was to ensure that he understood that basically the choice for the Hong Kong Government had been between a one price offer from the Japanese, which many people thought unrealistic because it had been made even before the inflation and the oil crisis, and a range of possibilities suggested by the Anglo/Italian Group which were designed to try to produce a realistic price and a visibly fair deal for the Hong Kong Government and might well even fall within the Hong Kong Government's price range. I also made the point that if the Anglo/Italian and anglo/Franco/German Consortium were in the event both unable to produce a price inside the Hong Kong Government's limit then there was a strong presumption that any Japanese price below the limit must either be subsidised or cutting some
CONFIDENTIAL
corners/
Every effort is made to ensure that the information given herein is accurate, butÃo legal responsibility is accepted for any errors or omis sions in that information and no responsibility is accepted in regard to the standing of any firms, companies, or individuals mentioned.
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